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For 24 hours this painting is $75, after that it returns to the retail price of $120. This painting size is 10" x 7"
If you would like to purchase this painting click here.

Before there were drones there were only airplanes and helicopters that could get photos of sweeping landscapes from the sky. Before there were cell phones, or video cameras there was the Brownie followed by the SLR cameras and then the Kodak Instamatic, film cameras. For us up in the Okanogan Valley in the 70s a little Instamatic was just the ticket. We would buy a roll of film at the pharmacy, which had 12, 24 or 36 exposures. We had a choice of black and white film or color, which was cool. Just pop the film into the camera and away you went. When we were finished snapping pictures we would send away for the mailing envelopes to ship the out film for developing. I remember dropping the film in the mail and then I would wait. I'm not sure how long it really took, but it seemed like forever. Then, one day it would show up, hooray! Opening the pack of photos was always exciting, until you looked at the pictures. Out of 24 pictures we would get maybe two that were okay. The rest were blurry, or way to dark. But we would keep all of them, because you could almost see that polar bear from the trip to the San Diego Zoo. It was a fuzzy reminder of a great memory. (Which, I realize, is kind of what my memories are now!) When my sister was a bit older she would send these fuzzy memories with her check to the electric company, because she couldn't stand to through the pictures away. As for me, I kept them in a photo album.

When I was on Buck for the summer I would get a couple days off every week to come back to town. Checking my mail was always a highlight and one day I received a letter that had a couple of pictures in it. It was from a young man in the army who was on a helicopter crew that buzzed my tower. (I always ran out and waved to the planes and helicopters – yay, people!) On that day the helicopter landed and the crew can up to visit. They dropped off one young man and left, saying they would be back in a couple of hours. Thankfully he was very nice and we had a good visit, and watched for forest fires. I didn't realize he had taken this picture. I think now about all he went through to get it developed, get a copy made and send me a little package. If I remembered his name I could thank him, but that too is just a fuzzy memory now.

I just realized today is Friday! Enjoy your evening and I will be back tomorrow for Day 3 of Project Wildfire!

All the best,

Kristi

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